Monday, 15 May 2017

Four new judges take oath in Delhi high court

Four new judges take oath in Delhi high court

New Delhi: The Delhi high court began the week on an exemplary(अनुकरणीय) note with the swearing (शपथ - ग्रहण) in of four new judges—justices Prathiba M. Singh, Rekha Pillai, Naveen Chawla and Hari Shankar. The four judges were administered oath on Monday by acting chief justice Gita Mittal, in the presence of all the other judges of the Delhi high court. The four judges will begin work on cases of their respective rosters from Monday itself. With these fresh appointments, the strength of the Delhi high court judges stands at 38, still leaving the court functioning on a little over half its sanctioned capacity of 60 judges. With the elevation(ऊंचाई) of two more women, it is one of the few courts that can boast of having 10 women judges, which is a little more than one-fourth of the total strength. It is also one which has had two women chief justices for two consecutive (लगातार) terms. Justice G. Rohini served as the chief justice for a three-year period—from April 2014 to April 2017. She has been succeeded by justice Gita Mittal, who is the currently serving as the acting chief justice of the Delhi high court. Their names were cleared by the Supreme Court collegium in April. On 11 May, under a notification by the ministry of law and justice, the President gave his assent to the four appointments.

Prathiba M. Singh is a senior advocate and a leading intellectual property rights (IP) lawyer who was one of the founders of Singh & Singh, a law firm handling IP matters, in 1997. She has been the face of numerous IP and competition law cases, including the significant Novartis-Cipla patent case where she represented Cipla for sale of its generic cancer drug in the country and won against Novartis.

Rekha Pilai, as a lawyer, had argued for the grant of a permanent commission to all women officers who were recruited before May 2006 in the air force and the army and said that it would be discriminatory to exclude them.

While justice Hari Shankar focused on indirect tax and service matters as a lawyer, justice Navin Chawla’s strong areas of practice include telecom and broadcast laws.

Apart from these appointments, the Delhi high court recently saw the transfer of three of its eminent judges as chief justices of other high courts—justice Badar Durrez Ahmad to the Jammu & Kashmir high court, justice Pradeep Nandrajog to the Rajasthan high court and justice Indira Banerjee to Madras high court.

In October 2015 , a five-judge Constitution bench struck down the Constitution (Ninety-ninth Amendment) Act, 2014, and the NJAC Act that sought to give the executive a say in the appointment of top judges and restored the collegium system of making judicial appointments.

Under the collegium system, a group of the five senior-most Supreme Court judges appoints other judges to the higher judiciary—the high courts and the Supreme Court. Articles 124 and 217 of the Constitution stipulate that judges will be appointed by the President of India after “consultation” with the Chief Justice of India and other judges.

Definitions of swear शपथ - ग्रहण

noun

the use of offensive language.

there's a lot of swearing in the show

verb

make a solemn statement or promise undertaking to do something or affirming that something is the case.